The following material was originally taken from a Congressional Research
Report on Erroneous Predictions and Negative Comments Concerning Scientific
and Technological Developments, CB 150, F-381, by Nancy T. Gamarra,
Research Assistant in National Security, Foreign Affairs Division, May 29
1969 (revised).

Aircraft

Samuel Langley's experiments with airplanes

Comment in the New York Times one week before the successful flight of the
Kitty Hawk by the Wright brothers:

"...We hope that Professor Langley will not put his substantial
greatness as a scientist in further peril by continuing to waste his time
and the money involved, in further airship experiments. Life is short, and
he is capable of services to humanity incomparably greater than can be expected
to result from trying to fly....For students and investigators of the Langley
type there are more useful employments."

Source: New York Times, December 10,1903, editorial page.

Possibility of building a successful flying machine

"Outside of the proven impossible, there probably can be
found no better example of the speculative tendency carrying man to the
verge of the chimerical than in his attempts to imitate the birds, or no
field where so much inventive seed has been sown with so little return as
in the attempts of man to fly successfully through the air. Never, it would
seem, has the human mind so persistently evaded the issue, begged the questions
and, 'wrangling resolutely with the facts', insisted upon dreams being accepted
as actual performance, as when there has been proclaimed time and again
the proximate and perfect utility of the balloon or of the flying machine."
"...Should man succeed in building a machine small enough to fly and
large enough to carry himself, then in attempting to build a still larger
machine he will find himself limited by the strength of his materials in
the same manner and for the same reasons that nature has."
"...there is no basis for the ardent hopes and positive statements
made as to the safety and successful use of the dirigible balloon or flying
machine, or both, for commercial transportation or as weapons of ware, and
that, therefore, it would be a wrong, whether willful or unknowing, to lead
the people and perhaps governments at this time to believe the contrary;..."

Source: Melville, Rear Admiral George W. The Engineer and the Problem of
Aerial Navigation. North American Review, December 1901. pp.
820, 825, 830-831.

"... The limit which the rarity of the air places upon
its power of supporting wings, taken in connection with the combined weight
of a man and a machine, make a drawback which we should not too hastily
assume our ability to overcome. The example of the bird does not prove that
man can fly. The hundred and fifty pounds of dead weight which the manager
of the machine must add to it over and above that necessary in the bird
may well prove an insurmountable obstacle to success."
"The practical difficulties in the way of realizing the movement of
such an object are obvious. The aeroplane must have its propellers. These
must be driven by an engine with a source of power. Weight is an essential
quality of every engine. The propellers must be made of metal, which has
its weakness, and which is liable to give way when its speed attains a certain
limit. And, granting complete success, imagine the proud possessor of the
aeroplane darting through the air at a speed of several hundred feet per
second! It is the speed alone that sustains him. Once he slackens his speed,
down he begins to fall. He may, indeed, increase the inclination of his
aeroplane. Then he increases the resistance necessary to move it. Once he
stops he falls a dead mass. How shall he reach the ground without destroying
his delicate machinery?"

"...The demonstration that no possible combination of known
substances, known forms of machinery and known forms of force, can be united
in a practical machine by which man shall fly long distances through the
air, seems to the writer as complete as it is possible for the demonstration
of any physical fact to be."

Limitations of airplanes

"...The machines will eventually be fast, they will be
used in sport, but they are not to be thought of as commercial carriers.
To say nothing of the danger, the sizes must remain small and the passengers
few, because the weight will, for the same design, increase as the cube
of the dimensions, while the supporting surfaces will only increase as the
square. It is true that when higher speeds become safe it will require fewer
square feet of surface to carry a man, and that dimensions will actually
decrease, but this will not be enough to carry much greater extraneous loads,
such as a store of explosives or big guns to shoot them. The power required
will always be great, say something like one horse power to every hundred
pounds of weight, and hence fuel can not be carried for long single journeys."

Source: Chanute, Octave. Aerial Navigation. Popular Sciences Monthly,
March 1904. p. 393. The astronomer, William H.
Pickering, said with regard to air flight after the invention of the airplane:

"...The popular mind often pictures gigantic flying machines
speeding across the Atlantic and carrying innumerable passengers in a way
analogous to our modern steamships...It seems safe to say that such ideas
must be wholly visionary, and even if a machine could get across with one
or two passengers the expense would be prohibitive to any but the capitalist
who could own his own yacht. Another popular fallacy is to expect enormous
speed to be obtained. It must be remembered that the resistance of the air
increases as the square of the speed and thework as the cube...If with 30
h.p. we can now attain a speed of 40 m.p.h., then in order to reach a speed
of 100 m.p.h., we must use a motor capable of 470 h.p...it is clear that
with our present devices there is no hope of competing for racing speed
with either our locomotives or our automobiles."

Suez Canal

"...All mankind has heard much of M. Lesseps (?) and his
Suez Canal...I have a very strong opinion that such canal will not and cannot
be made; that all the strength of the arguments adduced in the matter are
hostile to it; and that steam navigation by land will and ought to be the
means of transit through Egypt."

Source: Trollope, Anthony. The West Indies and the Spanish Main.
New York, Harper and Brothers, 1860. p. 331.

Darwin's theory of evolution

Criticism of Darwin's theory: Louis Agassiz, professor of geology and zoology
at Harvard University wrote the following:

"My recent studies have made me more adverse than ever
to the new scientific doctrines which are flourishing now in England. This
sensational zeal reminds me of what I experienced as a young man in Germany,
when the physio-philosophy of Oken had invaded every centre of scientific
activity; and yet, what is there left of it? I trust to outlive this mania
also."

"...Have they (geologists) found fossil remains which they
can prove to belong to the progenitors of the eagle, or of the horse, or
of the donkey, or the whale--of any creature, in short from a mouse or a
mole up to a man? I am aware, indeed, that fossil remains of animals thought
to resemble the horse have been found, but Mr. Darwin might as easily prove
that the donkey is descended from the dromedary, as that the horses of the
present day are descended from the Hippotherium...Why is it...that naturalists
do not come into light of existing facts, and point out to us some other
living species? They know that existing facts would not bear them out. Hence
they grope their way, by the aid of fossil bones, millions of ages back
into the past; and there, amid its pitchy darkness, they fancy they see
the desired transformations taking place."
"...What, then, is the sum of the changes which Mr. Darwin is able
to point to within the historic period as tending to prove his hypothesis?
It amounts absolutely to nothing. ...There are...many animals living now
which can be compared with their progenitors of the 3,000th generation back.
Can Mr. Darwin show, then, in the case of any one of them, that, by successive
variations accumulated during 3,000 generations, it has sensibly advanced
towards some higher form? Can he show that 3,000 generations have, in any
instance, done aught towards proving the truth of his hypothesis? It appears
that he cannot point to a single such case as yielding him support. 3,000
generations have done literally nothing for his hypothesis, If so, neither
would 30,000, nor 300,000; for,...if you multiply nothing by a million it
will be nothing still."
"There are...absolutely no facts either in the records of geology,
or in the history of the past, or in the experience of the present, that
can be referred to as proving evolution, or the development of one species
from another by selection of any kind whatever."
"Those who accept Mr. Darwin's account of the descent of man must accept
along with it not a little that is, if possible, even more incredible. For
example, while a certain monkey race has, by a series of insensible gradations,
occurring during a period of enormous length, developed into man, other
monkey races, during a yet longer period, have remained monkeys, making
no progress whatever! Mr. Darwin, I presume, would maintain that at least
half a million of years have passed since man emerged into humanity from
the last of his ape-like progenitors How far remote, then, must be the time
when the ape from which man has descended, branched away from the stem of
the Old World monkeys! But during this period - so long that, to us, it
is practically an eternity--Old World monkeys have remained Old World monkeys,
with the solitary exception of that wonderful member of the ancient series
of the Primates, with his plastic frame, of which Mr. Darwin catches "an
obscure glance" through the dim vista of ages."

Electricity

Opposition to the use of alternating current

"There is no plea which will justify the use of high-tension
and alternating currents, either in a scientific or a commercial sense.
They are employed solely to reduce investment in copper wire and real estate."
"...My personal desire would be to prohibit entirely the use of alternating
currents. They are unnecessary as they are dangerous...I can therefore see
no justification for the introduction of a system which has no element of
permanency and every elements of danger to life and property."
"...I have always consistently opposed high-tension and alternating
systems of electric lighting...not only on account of danger, but because
of their general unreliability and unsuitability for any general system
of distribution."

Source: Edison, Thomas A. The Dangers of Electric Lighting, North
American Review, November, 1889. pp.630, 632, 633. Thomas
A. Edison is also reported to have said:

"Just as certain as death, [George] Westinghouse will kill
a customer within six months after he puts in a system of any size."

Opposition to placing electric wires underground

"The public may rest absolutely assured that safety will
not be secured by burying these wires. The condensation of moisture, the
ingress of water, the dissolving influence of coal gas and air-oxidation
upon the various insulating compounds will result only in the transfer of
deaths to man-holes, houses, stores, and offices, through the agency of
the telephone, the low-pressure systems, and the apparatus of the high-tension
current itself."

Source: Edison, Thomas A., "The Dangers of Electric Lighting."
North American Review, November 1889. p.629.

Development of the incandescent lamp

Sir Arthur Preece, engineer-in-chief of the British Post Office, said in
1878:

"...Subdivision of the electric light as an absolute ignus
fatuus."

Source: Clarke, Arthur C. Profiles of the Future. New York,
Harper and Row, 1962. p. 2. A committee of the
British Parliament in 1878 reported Thomas Edison's ideas of developing
an incandescent lamp to be

"good enough for our transatlantic friends... but unworthy
of the attention of practical or scientific men"

Source: Clarke, Arthur C. Profiles of the Future. New York,
Harper and Row, 1962. p. 2. Utility of electric
lighting: For general purposes:

"...I do not think there is the slightest chance of its
[electricity] competing, in a general way, with gas. There are defects about
the electric light which, unless some essential change takes place, must
entirely prevent its application to ordinary lighting purposes."

Source: Remarks of Mr. Keates, Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Select
Committee on Lighting by Electricity in Report from the Select Committee
on Lighting by Electricity. London, House of Commons, 1879. p. 146. For use on board ships:

"...Without going into the consideration of many minor
objections to the general adoption of such a light on board ship, it may
be sufficient to call attention to the following serious drawbacks, viz.:
That whether fixed, revolving, or intermittent, a powerful light, such as
is referred to, could not fail to interface very considerably with the distinctive
arrangements for lighting the coasts by means of light- houses and light
vessels. That such powerful lights would be almost certain to detract very
much from the value of the smaller lights which the law compels all ships
to show by night, and the risks of collision would be increased. That the
glare of such powerful lights in crowded channels would be perplexing, and
would probably cause such confusion that the risks of collision would be
increased."

Source: Remarks of Mr. Farrer, Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Select
Committee on Lighting by Electricity in Report from the Select Committee
on Lighting by Electricity. London, House of Commons, 1879. pp. 156-14-57.

Ford, Henry and the Ford Motor Company

Ford's experiments with gas engines:

"...my gas-engine experiments were no more popular with
the president of the company than my first mechanical leanings were with
my father. It was not that my employer objected to experiments -- only to
experiments with gas engine. I can still hear him say: 'Electricity yes,
that's the coming thing. But gas--no.'"
"The Edison Company offered me the general superintendency of the company
but only on condition that I would give up my gas engine and devote myself
to something really useful."

Source: Ford, Henry. My Life and Work. New York, Doubleday,
Page and Company, 1922. pp. 34-35. Ford Motor Company:
In 1903 Henry Ford asked that membership in the Association of Licensed
Automobile Manufacturers be granted to the Ford Motor Company. Frederic
L. Smith, President of A.L.A.M. at that time, later recalled giving this
reply:

"I remember solemnly telling Henry Ford that his outfit
was really nothing but an 'assemblage plant' -- poison to the A.L.A.M. --
and that when they had their own plant and became a factor in the industry
they would be welcome..."

Gas Lighting

Proposal to light English cities by gas (early 1800's)

The idea was ridiculed in the following popular rhyme:

"We thankful are that sun and moon
Were placed so very high
That no tempestuous hand might reach
To tear them from the sky.
Were it not so, we soon should find
That some reforming ass
Would straight propose to snuff them out,
And light the world with Gas."

Further ridicule came from William H. Wollaston, English chemist and natural
philosopher, who said:

"[They] might as well try to light London with a slice
from the moon."

Source: Murdock, Alexander. Light Without a Wick, a Century of Gas- Lighting,
1792-1892. Glasgow, Scotland, University Press, 1892. p. 45.

Robert Goddard's Rocket Research

Criticism of Goddard's Rocket Research: A New York Times editorial of 1921
said:

"That Professor Goddard with his 'chair' in Clark College
and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution does not know the relation
of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum
against which to react -- to say that would be absurd. Of course he only
seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools..."

Source: Lehman, Milton. This High Man, the Life of Robert H. Goddard.
New York, Farrar, Straus and Company, 1963. p. 111. Letter
from Charles A. Lindbergh to Harry Guggenheim of the Guggenheim Foundation,
May 1936:

"I would much prefer to have Goddard interested in real
scientific development than to have him primarily interested in more spectacular
achievements which are of less real value."

Source: Lehman, Milton. This High Man, the Life of Robert H. Goddard.
New York, Farrar, Straus and Company, 1963. p. 231. Rocket
research as proposed to U. S. Army by Robert H. Goddard: Letter (excerpts)
from Brig. Gen. George H. Brett, Chief of Materiel, U.S. Army Air Corps,
to Robert H. Goddard rejecting his rocket research proposals (1941):

"The proposals as outlined in your letter...have been carefully
reviewed...While the Air Corps is deeply interested in the research work
being carried out by your organization...it does not, at this time, feel
justified in obligating further funds for basic jet propulsion research
and experimentation..."

Source: Lehman, Milton. This High Man, the Life of Robert H. Goddard.
New York, Farrar, Straus and Company, 1963. p. 310.

Medicine

William Harvey's discovery of the circulations of the blood

John Aubrey, a contemporary, wrote this account of the response William
Harvey received upon publication in 1628 of his book "De Motu Cordis"
in which he described his discovery of the blood's circulation:

"...I heard Harvey say that after his book came out, he
fell mightily in his practice. 'Twas believed by the vulgar that he was
crack-brained, and all the physicians were against him. I knew several doctors
in London that would not have given threepence for one of his medicines."

Opposition to inoculation

Reaction from the English medical profession to Dr. Edward Jenner's experiments
in developing a vaccine for small-pox (1796):

"...It was argued that inoculation of the kind employed
by Jenner would produce a cow-like face; that those who had been vaccinated
(the word 'vaccinate' is derived from the Latin vacca, a cow) would grow
hairy and cough like cows. ...one doctor stated: 'Smallpox is a visitation
from God; but the cowpox is produced by presumptuous man; the former was
what Heaven ordained, the latter is, perhaps, a daring violation of our
holy religion.'"

Source: Butler, R. R. Scientific Discovery. London, English
Universities Press, Ltd., 1947. p. 100. The following
excerpts of opinion of many members of the medical profession and the clergy
in the United States illustrate a similar reaction to inoculation experiments
of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston (about 1721).

"...for a man to infect a family in the morning with smallpox
and to pray to God in the evening against the disease is blasphemy; that
the smallpox is 'a judgment of God on the sins of the people,' and that
'to avert it is but to provoke him more'; that inoculation is 'an encroachment
on the prerogatives of Jehovah, whose right it is to wound and smite."

Source: White, Andrew D. A History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology. New York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1960. p. 56

Opposition to use of anesthesia

The famed surgeon Alfred Velpeau wrote in 1839:

"The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is
absurd to go on seeking it today. 'Knife' and 'pain' are two words in surgery
that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient. To
this compulsory combination we shall have to adjust ourselves."

Limitation of surgery

Sir John Erichsen (1873):

"There cannot always be fresh fields of conquest by the
knife; there must be portions of the human frame that will ever remain sacred
from its intrusions, at least in the surgeon's hands. That we have already,
if not quite, reached these final limits, there can be little question.
The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will be forever shut from the intrusion
of the wise and humane surgeon."

Source: Woods, Ralph L. "Prophets Can be Right and Prophets Can Be
Wrong." American Legion Magazine, October 1966. p. 29.

Military Technology

Opposition to the change from bow to musket

In 1591 Colonel Sir John Smyth advised the British Privy Council:

"...The bow is a simple weapon, firearms are very complicated
things which get out of order in many ways...a very heavy weapon and tires
out soldiers on the march. Whereas also a bowman can let off six aimed shots
a minute, a musketeer can discharge but one in two minutes."

Opposition within the British military to machine
guns

Brigadier-General Baker-Carr, first commandant of the British Army machine-gun
school in France wrote this account of the dislike of traditional battalion
commanders for the machine-gun (1914):

"What shall I do with the machine-guns today, sir?' would
be the question frequently asked by the officer in charge of a field day.
'Take the damn things to a flank and hide them!' was the usual reply."

Possibility of developing intercontinental missiles

Dr. Vannevar Bush said in December of 1945:

"There has been a great deal said about a 3,000 miles high-angle
rocket. In my opinion such a thing is impossible for many years. The people
who have been writing these things that annoy me, have been talking about
a 3,000 mile high-angle rocket shot from one continent to another, carrying
an atomic bomb and so directed as to be a precise weapon which would land
exactly on a certain target, such as a city. I say, technically, I don't
think anyone in the world knows how to do such a thing, and I feel confident
that it will not be done for a very long period of time to come...I think
we can leave that out of our thinking. I wish the American public would
leave that out of their thinking."

Radio

Lee de Forest: In 1913 Lee de Forest, inventor of the audion tube, which
device makes radio broadcasting possible, was brought to trial on charges
of fraudulently using the U. S. mails to sell the public stock in the Radio
Telephone Company, a worthless enterprise. In the court proceedings, the
District Attorney charged that

"De Forest has said in many newspapers and over his signature
that it would be possible to transmit human voice across the Atlantic before
many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements,
the misguided public...has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company..."

Limited utility of radio

W. W. Dean, President of the Dean Telephone Company told Lee de Forest in
1907:

"...You could put in this room [his office], de Forest,
all the radiotelephone apparatus that the country will ever need!"

Source: De Forest, Lee. Father of Radio, the Autobiography of Lee
de Forest. Chicago, Wilcox and Follett Co., 1950. p. 232. Friends of Lee de Forest asked:

"Well, then of what possible use can your 'radiotelephone'
be? It can't compare with the wire phone, you say, and it can't cover the
distances that the wireless telegraph can cover. Then what the hell use
is it anyway Lee?"

Source: De Forest Lee. Father of Radio, the Autobiography of Lee de
Forest. Chicago, Wilcox and Follett Co., 1950. p. 227.

Railroads and locomotives

Limitations of railroads and locomotive engines:

"...the most ridiculous ideas have been formed, and circulated
of their powers; and though I am of the opinion, when made the subject of
attention amongst engineers, they will advance in improvement like other
machines, they must as yet be considered only in their infancy, and as not
having reached beyond the trammels of prejudice. It is far from my wish
to promulgate to the world that the ridiculous expectations, or rather professions,
of the enthusiastic speculist will be realised, and that we shall see them
travelling at the rate of 12, 16, 18, or 20 miles an hour: nothing could
do more harm towards their adoption, or general improvement, than the promulgation
of such nonsense."

Opposition to building a railway in England

At the instance of the introduction of a bill in Parliament in 1825 to build
a railway between Liverpool and Manchester, England, many hysterical statements
were made. Mr. Samuel Smilez, in his biography of George Stephenson, describes
them as follows:

"...pamphlets were written and newspapers were hired to
revile the railway. It was declared that its formation would prevent cows
grazing and hens laying. The poisoned air from the locomotives would kill
birds as they flew over them, and render the preservation of pheasants and
foxes no longer possible. Householders adjoining the projected line were
told that their houses would be burnt up by the fire thrown from the engine-chimneys,
while the air around would be polluted by clouds of smoke. There would no
longer be any use for horses; and if railways extended, the species would
become extinguished, and oats and hay unsalable commodities. Traveling by
road would be rendered highly dangerous, and country inns would be ruined.
Boilers would burst and blow passengers to atoms. But there was always this
consolation to wind up with -- that the weight of the locomotive would completely
prevent its moving, and that railways, even if made, could never be worked
by steam-power!"

Railway travel (general)

"...We are not the advocates for visionary projects that
interfere with useful establishments; we scout the idea of a general rail-road,
as altogether impracticable; or, as one, at least, which will be rendered
nugatory in lines, where the traffic is so small that the receipts would
scarcely pay for this consumption of coals. As to those persons who speculate
on making rail-ways general throughout the kingdom, and superseding all
the canals, all the waggons, mail and stage-coaches, post-chaises, and,
in short, every other mode of conveyance by land and by water, we deem them
and their visionary schemes unworthy of notice....The gross exaggerations
of the powers of the locomotive steam-engine, or, to speak in plain English,
the steam-carriages, may delude for a time, but must end in the mortification
of those concerned. ...It is certainly some consolation to those who are
to be whirled at the rate of eighteen or twenty miles an hour, by means
of a high pressure engine, to be told that they are in no danger of being
seasick while on shore; that they are not to be scalded to death nor drowned
by the bursting of the boiler; and that they need not mind being shot by
the scattered fragments, or dashed in pieces by the flying off, or the breaking
of a wheel, But with all these assurances, we should as soon expect the
people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's
ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going
at such a rate;...we will back old father Thames against the Woolwich rail-way
for any sum."

Source: Quarterly Review (Gt. Britain), March 1825. pp. 361-362.

"I see what will be the effect of it; that it will set
the whole world a-gadding. Twenty miles an hour, sir! - Why, you will not
be able to keep an apprentice boy at his work! Every Saturday evening he
must have a trip to Ohio to spend a Sunday with his sweetheart. Grave plodding
citizens will be flying about like comets. All local attachments will be
at an end. It will encourage flightiness of intellect. Veracious people
will turn into the most immeasurable liars. All conceptions will be exaggerated
by the magnificent notions of distance. -- Only a hundred miles off!--Tut,
nonsense, I'll step across, madam, and bring your fan'...And then, sir,
there will be barrels of port, cargoes of flour, chaldrons of coal, and
even lead and whiskey, and such like sober things that have always been
used to slow travelling -- whisking away like a sky rocket. It will upset
all the gravity of the nation...Upon the whole, sir, it is a pestilential,
topsy-turvy, harm-scarum whirligig. Give me the old, solemn, straight forward,
regular Dutch Canal - three miles an hour for expresses, and two rod jog-trot
journeys -- with a yoke of oxen for heavy loads. I go for beasts of burden.
It is more formative and scriptural, and suits a moral and religious people
better. -- None of your hop skip and jump whimsies for me."

Source: From the Western Sun of Vincennes, Indiana, July 24,
1830, as quoted by Seymour Dunbar in A History of Travel in America,
Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1915, Vol. III. p. 938.

"...even if the propeller had the power of propelling a
vessel, it would be found altogether useless in practice, because the power
being applied in the stern it would be absolutely impossible to make the
vessel steer."

Source: Church, William Conant. The Life of John Ericsson,
New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1890. p. 90.

Telegraphy

Samuel F. B. Morse

Reaction of Senator Smith of Indiana after a demonstration by Samuel Morse
of his telegraph before Congressional members in 1842:

"I watched his countenance closely, to see if he was not
deranged....and I was assured by other Senators after we left the room that
they had no confidence in it."

Source: Dunbar, Seymour. A History of Travel in America. Indianapolis,
Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1915, Vol. III. p. 1048. When
Samuel F. B. Morse offered to sell his telegraph to the U.S. government
for $100,000, the Postmaster General rejected the offer on the basis that

"...the operation of the telegraph between Washington and
Baltimore had not satisfied him that under any rate of postage that could
be adopted, its revenues could be made equal to its expenditures."

Opposition to providing funds to build a telegraph
line between Baltimore and New York City

When the bill to appropriate money ($8,000) for maintenance of the telegraph
line between Washington and Baltimore came up in Congress in 1845, amendment
was offered in the Senate providing that money also be appropriated for
construction of a telegraph line between Baltimore and New York City, the
cost of which was estimated at $100,000. The following objection was raised:

"...What was this telegraph to do? Would it transmit letters
and newspapers? Under what power in the constitution did Senators propose
to erect this telegraph? He was not aware of any authority except under
the clause for the establishment of post roads. And besides the telegraph
might be made very mischievous, and secret information after communicated
to the prejudice of merchants."

Wireless telegraphy

At a meeting of stockholders of the Western Telegraph Company in 1907, Sir
John Wolfe-Barry remarked:

"...As far as I can judge, I do not look upon any system
of wireless telegraphy as a serious competitor with our cables. Some years
ago I said the same thing and nothing has since occurred to alter my views."

Source: Dunlap's Radio and Television Almanac. New York, Harper,
1951. p. 44.